"It happened quite a while ago, when I was about
twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then; you
see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separate
allowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty
keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted
with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story."
"We haven't arrived at the meet yet. I suppose there was a meet,"
said Clovis.
"Of course there was a meet," said the Baroness; all the usual
crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle. Constance is one
of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn
scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel a
presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen,' she said
to me; 'am I looking pale?'
"She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly
heard bad news.
"'You're looking nicer than usual,' I said, 'but that's so easy
for you.' Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we
had settled down to business; hounds had found a fox lying out in
some gorse-bushes."
"I knew it," said Clovis, "in every fox-hunting story that I've
ever heard there's been a fox and some gorse-bushes.
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